Balance sheet for 2007

Thats right.. balance sheet for 2007 :) Last few weeks have been really happening; for good and for bad. I was sitting y'night with my roomies discussing the ups and downs of the Indian stock market and why it happened (if at all we had any clues); and it came my mind that the entire year in my life has been like the sensex reaching peaks and touching craters; and i've no idea why. All-in-all its been a great year, for those achieved targets because they made me happy and confident; even for those failed wishes i couldn't fulfill because they made me learn quite many things. So i just thought to, well, list all the highs and downs and calculate my net gain/loss this year :D and started this post. However sorry to disappoint you it got too personal midway and so i left in between and moved to my secret notepad hosted by Y! Notepad. Couple of things that were really happening and can go on public record ;-) included my great job with great guys (was very much enjoying all that i was doing there and the people i was working with; with special mention of my mentor), made couple of trekkings with 3000, doggie, kabbu and rpg, found couple of school friends on social networks (met a few personally, promised others that i will meet them soon, though i'm yet to), lost some weight and learnt a bit of fitness mantra (hell, i had to spend quite some money for it), met few relatives on my couple of tours back home (it had been more than 5-8 years since the last time). Well thats it. I'm not going to share the failures, thats for me :D, both the learnings and failures..

Golden Rules for Career Success by Richard Moran

WORKING as a business consultant all over the world, I have discovered some basic career-related rules that everyone should know—but many don’t.

Business is made up of ambiguous victories and nebulous defeats. Claim them all as victories.

Keep track of what you do; someone is sure to ask.

Be comfortable around senior managers, or learn to fake it.

Never bring your boss a problem without some solution. You are getting paid to think, not to whine.

Long hours don’t mean anything; results count, not effort.

Write down ideas; they get lost, like good pens.

Always arrive at work 30 minutes before your boss.

Help other people network for jobs. You never know when your turn will come.

Don’t take days off sick—unless you are.

Assume no one can/will keep a secret.

Know when you do your best—morning, night, under pressure, relaxed; schedule and prioritize your work accordingly.

Treat everyone who works in the organization with respect and dignity, whether it be the cleaner or the managing director. Don’t ever be patronizing.

Never appear stressed in front of a client, a customer or your boss. Take a deep breath and ask yourself: In the course of human events, how important is this?

If you get the entrepreneurial urge, visit someone who has his own business. It may cure you.

Acknowledging someone else’s contribution will repay you doubly.

Career planning is an oxymoron. The most exciting opportunities tend to be unplanned.

Always choose to do what you’ll remember ten years from now.

The size of your office is not as important as the size of your pay cheque.

Understand what finished work looks like and deliver your work only when it is finished.

The person who spends all of his or her time is not hard-working; he or she is boring.

Know how to write business letters—including thank-you notes as well as proposals.

Never confuse a memo with reality. Most memos from the top are political fantasy.

Eliminate guilt. Don’t fiddle expenses, taxes or benefits, and don’t cheat colleagues.

Reorganizations mean that someone will lose his or her job. Get on the committee that will make the recommendations.

Job security does not exist.

Always have an answer to the question, “What would I do if I lost my job tomorrow?”

Go to the company Christmas party.

Don’t get drunk at the company Christmas party. Avoid working at weekends. Work longer during the week if you have to.

The most successful people in business are interesting.

Sometimes you’ll be on a winning streak and everything will click; take maximum advantage. When the opposite is true, hold steady and wait it out.

Never in your life say, “It’s not my job.”

Be loyal to your career, your interests and yourself. Understand the skills and abilities that set you apart. Use them whenever you have an opportunity.

People remember the end of the project. As they say in boxing, “Always finish stronger than you start.”

"Creepers"-A play about Bangalore the city and people who love it

I often get lost while thinking about beginning of a post so this time i thought it would be about the confusion itself, hehe.. coming to this post, i went to rangashankara again and this was my fourth play there (or perhaps i should say third only because i wasn't let in there because of being late for the third one; i appreciate their discipline though, atleast there are couple of guys serious about things they do). I've few friends who are not in bangalore but want to know about the plays i see at times so here i go with my interpretation of "Creepers". I prefer going to theaters to movies because everytime i find some message in the play deep inside; the abstractness at which they present their idea is overwhelming. You wonder where it is going until it reaches the end and you suddenly find relation between what all was performed so far. Its a nice experience, let me tell you :)

"Creepers" is a story about a bangalore couple. The guy is one of those netaholic s/w engineer who spends a lot of time on his laptop writing blog notes, checking orkut scraps and emails and wandering the cyberspace for what you could easily guess.. the girl is an art enthusiast as she says in one of the scenes with pride that she has a BA in arts and going for Masters soon. Both are trying to depict a story, a story about "bangalore-the city" that it was and that it is becoming. They have different perceptions about the changes that are happening. The guy likes the changes the IT revolution has brought in but the girl wonders where it is all going, why everything is becoming so complex. She wonders about the change in culture, change in people's attitude and the big crowd that has suddenly grown beyond what the city ever expected to host. The play starts with comedy with the funny arguments between the two but slowly brings the play into its context. For half of the play the writer probably tried to show how consumed we are today in our online life than the offline/real life doing things that probably don't make much sense (checking email even if there are none, checking scraps even if there are none, watching online videos etc instead of spending time with your friends and family and many similar thoughts). In the beginning itself the play questions you "what will happen to your email when you die? expire? ohh well but what about your online presence in orkut/hi5/facebook?" In the second half play shows the changes of life in bangalore through the eyes of this couple as they go through different phases of life. I loved the way the play shows how they have grown up from one stage of life to another (youth to older and older). They don't say much directly but there conversation itself makes you think and feel whats happening. Dialogues are mostly repeating but the body language of the actors on the stage speak what they wanted to convey. Just loved this part of the play. At the end they relate to Madhuvanti and Lavanya story of "Vikram Baitaal" in current context of bangalore and all those who love the city. In one line they tried to say "the city is dead but i live with its bones and ashes because i love it". This is something i've heard time and again from people who have spent time in bangalore say some 5 years ago from now. They just wonder when they visit here now, is this is the same city they once knew. The infrastructure has not been able to keep up with the growth that IT sector brought in here. Perhaps the rate of growth was too fast for the infrastructure growth to catch up with. I'm not a native of bangalore and have spent some significant time of my life in Calcutta and hyderabad but i must say i love bangalore the most. I would end this post with the note that the play probably wanted to leave "The city is dead but i live with its bones and ashes because i love it"

Casting to integer

a = b| 0

and wait a minute, you can't declare a as int, you must use

var a = b | 0

Short but finally i've started some technical blogging.. hurrah!!!

And to keep link handy, here i go!!!

Constrasts of Life

I was going to Tot@l (a nearby shopping mall) yesterday for buying some usual stuff. On the way i saw a drunkard beating his wife near the crossing. That wife was trying to see where all she was beaten and if she was bleeding. While this husband was busy finding ways to slap and beat here. Did i say the wife had stopped resisting the attack; i saw she once tried but the husband picked up a stone on the road and threatened to hit with that. For a few moments i was with no words what in the world is happening. We claim so many things when we talk about India and "woman empowerment" and see here its the same old "woman story" for this unfortunate wife.

While i was cursing that guy for his brutality and reached the mall, i caught a totally different scene there. There was this young couple (both seemed working, well atleast i perceived so) with a child(hardly a year or two old). The husband was carrying the child on his lap and the wife was on a shopping spree. She was buying this and that and that and... (GOD knows what and what) and the husband was giving a pity glance "aaj pura mall hi kharid legi kya..." (OMG, she's gonna buy the whole mall..). Still he was mum and approving (as in accepting it) whatever she was buying... I felt a sense of surrender there by this husband to his wife.

I'm not saying that the second scene was something totally in contrast with what i saw in the first one. But what brought this change in just a few meters distance... was it education? Was it financial independence? I don't know what.. but thats what i'm pondering...

I'm reading...

Effective Java by Joshua Bloch

Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter

Thought of the day

There are things you can change
There are things you can work out
And then there are things you can't do anything about....